onnoisseur, he can hold the rank only by courtesy--a
courtesy which is content to degrade the character, that his inferior
pretensions may be accepted and honoured under the name.

24. By the force of a late popular example, still too widely influential,
grammatical authorship has been reduced, in the view of many, to little or
nothing more than a mere serving-up of materials anonymously borrowed; and,
what is most remarkable, even for an indifferent performance of this low
office, not only unnamed reviewers, but several writers of note, have not
scrupled to bestow the highest praise of grammatical excellence! And thus
the palm of superior skill in grammar, has been borne away by a _professed
compiler_; who had so mean an opinion of what his theme required, as to
deny it even the common courtesies of compilation! What marvel is it, that,
under the wing of such authority, many writers have since sprung up, to
improve upon this most happy design; while all who were competent to the
task, have been discouraged from attempting any thing like a complete
grammar of our language? What motive shall excite a man to long-continued
diligence, where such notions prevail as give mastership no hope of
preference, and where the praise of his ingenuity and the reward of his
labour must needs be inconsiderable, till some honoured compiler usurp them
both, and bring his "most useful matter" before the world under better
auspices? If the love of learning supply such a motive, who that has
generously yielded to the impulse, will not now, like Johnson, feel himself
reduced to an "humble drudge"--or, like Perizonius, apologize for the
apparent folly of devoting his time to such a subject as grammar?

25. The first edition of the "Institutes of English Grammar," the doctrinal
parts of which are embraced in the present more copious work, was published
in the year 1823; since which time, (within the space of twelve years,)
about forty new compends, mostly professing to be abstracts of _Murray_,
with improvements, have been added to our list of English grammars. The
author has examined as many as thirty of them, and seen advertisements of
perhaps a dozen more. Being various in character, they will of course be
variously estimated; but, so far as he can judge, they are, without
exception, works of little or no real merit, and not likely to be much
patronized or long preserved from oblivion. For which reason, he would have
been inclined entirely to